


Something She'd Like

by ilikeyoshi



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Death, Gen, Mother's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 00:38:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3916648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilikeyoshi/pseuds/ilikeyoshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The curious notion of a human holiday drives Wrathion to the ever fittingly named Badlands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something She'd Like

**Author's Note:**

> to quote my tumblr post,
> 
> "i had an idea at 3pm on mother’s day & bolted to my computer because i was determined to finish it before the day was over & i made myself sad here you go take my brain trash just take it get it away from me."

"My prince, if I may—"

"You may not," Wrathion huffed.

"Tough," Right said. "What are we doing _here_?"

He shifted his jaw, ignoring the way his teeth grated in his mouth. He couldn't say he was surprised by the question. It was more than a little justified, given that tensions were high in Pandaria and he had so many reasons to be there and not here, in the Eastern Kingdoms, in the middle of apparent _nowhere_ no less. It was a completely reasonable question, and one that was well overdue. His agents must have thought themselves clever enough to work out the answer on their own, and they would be, if he'd ever given them, or anyone the pieces to put together.

He smiled, suddenly, and continued on his walk, listening to the dry red dust plume up underneath his feet. His agents didn't hesitate to follow him.

"I have business here," he finally said.

"Obviously," Right said, glancing at Left, who only shrugged a shoulder, "but I meant what _kind_ of business."

"Our friend, the talkative Prince of Stormwind, had some interesting things to say the last time we spoke." He remembered the conversation vividly, despite it having been weeks ago.

_"What are those?"_

_"... Flowers?"_

_"Well, yes, I can see they're flowers—what are you_ doing _with them?"_

_"Holding them."_

_"Funny. If you're trying to charm me, Prince Anduin, you're surprisingly awful at it."_

_"They're not for_ you _."_

_"Good, they're not colors I like anyway."_

_"You won't have to look at them much longer; I'm sending them home."_

_"To Lion's Landing?"_

_"To Stormwind."_

"You're a little north for Stormwind, my prince," Right said.

Wrathion rolled his eyes. "Yes, I'm aware. Rest assured, this is exactly where I want to be."

"We're practically a world away from Pandaria." She glanced at the scenery, if it could even be called such. Everything from the narrow peaks that loomed in the dusty sky to the crevices where water may've once run were dry and dead. Sparing another look at Left, the orc's face, though as subtle as her own, confirmed she remained just as confused. "Geographically _and_ visually. What business could you possibly have in the _Badlands_?"

_"What's in Stormwind that warrants flowers?"_

_"You... don't know what day is coming up, do you?"_

_"Oh, no—is this another one of your human holidays?"_

_"I'm afraid so. Would you like to hear about this one too?"_

_"I didn't want to hear about the last one."_

_"You had Blacktalons bring you 'samples' after I told you about Noblegarden."_

_"I did no such thing."_

_"I've been eating painted eggs with my breakfast for weeks!"_

_"I have no idea what you're talking about."_

Wrathion smiled falsely. "Research, of sorts. Now! One of you find me New Kargath."

The agents looked at each other, then at their surroundings again. The wasteland's openness should have been comforting, as very little could hide in such a place, yet the fact there was nothing for miles just made the prospect of finding something discouragingly hopeless. It wasn't like there were people around to simply _ask_ , either. The place was desolate.

Yet they wouldn't be Blacktalons if they couldn't manage, so sure enough, they found him New Kargath. The city was plagued with black dragon attacks once, worse after Deathwing left his mark on the Badlands. Now, with the dragonflight all but extinct, it faired better. They were perhaps five minutes from the spiked barriers that barred the city from danger when Wrathion veered to the right, into the barren wilderness, with such disarming abruptness that even his agents faltered in their step.

"I thought you had business in town," Right called after him.

"I never said that," he answered. "New Kargath was just a landmark."

Right permitted herself an indignant scoff, which earned her a consoling grunt from Left. Regardless, the Blacktalons pursued their prince into the wilds. They skirted the northern edge of New Kargath, passing dormant catapult-like contraptions armed with giant disk-shaped saw blades, and traversed a red valley that Right was convinced would take them to a dead end with how narrow it was. When it inevitably did just that, Wrathion failed to hesitate, instead braving the broken hills, a testament of Deathwing's assault on this place years ago.

" _Where_ are we going?" Right said, her patience lost, perhaps buried under the earth with most of old Kargath. "There's nothing here."

"Wait there, then," Wrathion said through a voice strained by his climb. "I handled this place just fine without you the last time I was here."

"'Last time'?" Right echoed. "What is this place to you?"

"Some might call it home," he said, "if they were sentimental and very, very naive."

For the second time, which was already more than usual, Right huffed. Left, wordlessly, passed her to begin tailing the Black Prince, and with a roll of her eyes, the other agent pursued. Over the crown of the first shattered mound was the remnants of old Kargath and, to their surprise, bones. Tiny bones, certainly not humanoid, strewn about the earth. They would have thought nothing of it, but there were so many skeletons, all the same size, as if an entire horde of tiny creatures were wiped out all in the blink of an eye. Left knelt by one of the skeletons, brushing dust from the bones. When Right came up beside her, the orc grunted and leaned back in her crouch.

"Wings," she said.

"Where the hell are we," Right grumbled, glancing around for Wrathion. He was on one of the higher hills, looking out into whatever opened up on the other side. "A ruin?" she yelled to him across the distance.

He didn't answer. She squinted, more out of annoyance than much else, and marched her way to the hill to stand beside him, Left in tow.

"Does this have anything to do with Pandaria?" she asked at a much more typical volume as she got close. "I can't imagine what else would possibly drive you so far awa—"

She stopped beside him, as her eyes scanned over the city ruins. More bones, mostly tiny, but one skeleton stood out. It was giant, dwarfing the rest, but shaped just the same, half-buried in just as much dirt as all the others. Where the little skulls had nubs, the massive one had horns, teeth, spines... Suddenly, Right knew what the skeletons were. Staring at the biggest, the matriarch of the ruin ( _Graveyard,_ her mind corrected), it was hard to mistake a dragon for anything else.

 _A black dragon,_ she thought. It was _Badlands_ , after all. It had to be a black dragon.

But Wrathion had killed them all—the ones that were left anyway. So why come here? Why care? Had he thought there were living ones hidden in the ruins? What purpose did he have in coming...

Home. Coming _home_.

Right's eyes shot to him, and stupidly, she'd expected grief, or perhaps a sneering look that chided her for making such a fuss. But he wasn't looking at her. He hadn't moved since she'd seen him on the hill. He stared out at the bones—the large, irrefutable dragon bones—and it wasn't grief or a sneer, but resignation and a _smile_?

_"You're staring."_

_"I'm thinking, and happen to be looking in your direction."_

_"You want me to tell you about it, don't you?"_

_"About what."_

_"I know you know what."_

_"I don't know what you know I know."_

_"Would it kill you to just ask?"_

_"It might. That's a possibility."_

Right thought, for a moment, that she was supposed to say something. But he moved, finally, before she could even begin to wonder what. She didn't try to follow him, as he made his way down the hill, dust floating into the air in his wake. She chose, instead, to take his suggestion and wait there, as he crossed the plane of red earth and dead dragons, stopping at the skull of the matriarch. Her, he did remember, if only partially and if only sometimes, through cracked, wild eyes, shrouded by infancy and corruption, before all those things were ripped apart and only Wrathion was left.

He'd never seen her clearly, with whole yet mismatched eyes, wild but not wicked.

_"As I said, I'm sending them home to Stormwind. Have you ever heard of Tiffin Wrynn?"_

_"Queen Wrynn? I was under the impression she was—"_

_"She is. That's why I'm sending flowers instead of a letter."_

_"... Ah. Of course."_

_"Of course."_

_"This holiday is about Tiffin Wrynn?"_

_"Well, sort of. For me, anyway. Not so much for others."_

_"That's rather cryptic, Prince Anduin. Am I rubbing off on you?"_

_"Light, I hope not. It's called Mother's Day."_

He smiled again, at a body as broken as his eyes had been the last time they'd seen each other. Yet, uniquely, they were both free of corruption, even if such a thing was only possible through death and, if unlucky enough, rebirth. He reached out and brushed his hand over the skull's nose, and vaguely, fleetingly, he recalled how it felt when she pushed it against his egg in the dead of night.

_"What do you do on this 'Mother's Day'?"_

_"Well, anything I suppose. Something nice. Something she'd like."_

Would she like to know her child, shattered and smashed back together, was at least partly intact? Would she have called him a monster if she'd lived to know? Would she be glad?

He'd like to think yes. If not glad that he was alive, to some extent, then he'd like to think she'd be glad that his existence had inadvertently brought about Rheastrasza's demise. Surely that was one good thing he'd done for her.

_"And if you don't have a mother?"_

_"Then, maybe something you'd like, if given the chance."_

He wasn't sure what he'd have liked. Not to meet her—at least, not when she was alive and in every way like the rest of their flight. Not to have known her, though, because it was already hard enough not to think about the circumstances that brought him life. But not to forget her, either. So perhaps this was the closest he could get to something he'd like. Perhaps it was fair that his mother would only ever be bones to him, and her child would only ever be pieces to her. Perhaps that's all the black dragonflight could be. Fragments.

_"What's the point of doing anything at all?"_

_"Well. If you'd like it, maybe she would too?"_

_"Hmph. I should've expected as much from you, Prince Anduin."_

_"Say what you will, but mothers want their children to be happy."_

For a moment, he felt her nose against him, and remembered the warmth she nudged him into. He heard her snarl as hands—alien, mortal hands—tore him away from her heat. He was left cold, freezing, haunted by slimy, gurgling whispers and then mechanical ones, lights, whirrs, pain—

Somewhere, far away, she swore vengeance.

He brushed his hand across her nose again. His mind quieted, the scars numbed and the cold thawed, as if nudged into her warmth once again. He didn't wonder if she'd be glad anymore.

"Hello, Mother."

**Author's Note:**

> "#i realize in retrospect anduin got flowers very prematurely but i rushed this ok besides warcraft healers make them live forever"
> 
> happy mother's day i'm sorry i did a sad thing


End file.
